


The Awoken Hunter

by Detachedfox



Series: The 'What You Don't See In Destiny' Series [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Games), Destiny - Fandom, Destiny 2 - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-05-23 06:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14929055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Detachedfox/pseuds/Detachedfox
Summary: You know what’s worse than having your light taken away from you?Being reborn only months before your light was taken away from you. Light is what defines a guardian and for the Hunters, they need it more than ever. One of the few Hunters who still had a functioning Ghost after the Cabal invaded, Cecilia Rayner, was one of those who fought along side the Vanguard even though it would mean certain death if they slipped up in any way. She was born only months before the invasion on the Last City. Her story is far different from the stories typically told of the hero Guardians but just as interesting.The Awoken Hunter with a human name.|First book in possible series||Story within Destiny leading up to Destiny 2|Also published on Wattpad if you prefer that site (it has funny gifs and images)https://www.wattpad.com/story/150318633-the-awoken-hunter





	1. Epigraph

 

 

Worst case scenario; you die. But who knows? Maybe you won't.

                                    _\- Cayde-6_

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Introduction

You know what's worse than having your light taken away from you? 

Being reborn only months before your light was taken away from you. Light is what defines a guardian and for the Hunters, they need it more than ever. Most people when they are reborn choose to be a Warlock or a Titan because who doesn't want to be insanely strong or be a space wizard? For the very select few that don't want either, they have no options left than to be a Hunter.

It isn't all bad though.

The Hunter Vanguard Cayde-6 is always cracking jokes and making light of the worst situations, one time he apparently distracted a Cabal officer with a chicken. Who else does that? But the number of Hunters dwindle in comparison to the Titans and Warlocks. Warlocks strive to find the secrets of the universe and Titans serve to protect and shield Earth and what do Hunters do? Well Hunters just sneak around and steal stuff. So when the light was taken away from everyone, Hunters felt it the hardest. They aren't strong, they don't have mystical powers, all they have is their enhanced agility and stealth and once that was taken away from them, the Hunters were screwed.

One of the few Hunters who still had a functioning Ghost after the Cabal invaded, Cecilia Rayner, was one of those who fought along side the Vanguard to take back the city even though it would mean certain death if they slipped up in any way. She was reborn only months before the invasion on the Last City. Her story is far different from the stories typically told of the hero Guardians but just as interesting. 

Cecilia Rayner.

The Awoken Hunter with a human name. 

 


	3. Chapter One

 

 

Warmth.

Intoxicatingly inviting warmth.

That was the first thing she felt. The next was a surprising coolness she felt all over and a constant soft patter of something colder on her back. It was almost rhythmic and sort of relaxing in a way. Then came the sound. The light rainfall all around her, the rustling of leaves to her right and very faint shouts far off in the distance. Where was she? From the sounds and feelings, she guessed a planet, or at least a moon? Definitely not space otherwise she’d be floating around not laying down on the ground.

She tried opening her eyes only to be greeted with the lovely sight of nothing but pitch black. Why couldn’t she see? Then it hit her. She was laying on her stomach. She quickly rolled onto her back and tried to open her eyes again, this time finding a much better view than her previous attempt. A dark grey sky with gloomy dark clouds looming over her and tiny holes in the layer of thick clouds where something had gone through it. To her, it was the most welcoming sight she could have expected.

“Guardian?”

A voice snapped her out of her wonderment and made her focus on an odd object havering over her. It was some sort white, four pointed star with a blue iris in the middle. The top and bottom points had a gold, blunt end to it whilst the ends to the left and to the right had a split down the middle. Maybe the object could change shape? It seemed to mimic the front design on the back as the object moved around her a bit, looking as if it were searching for something.

 “Hello?”

There it was again. That voice. Was it coming from the object floating over her, moving what seemed to be its’ front half around? The voice was definitely feminine with a comforting, but firm tone to it that made her somewhat trust the strange thing even though it was the first time seeing it and well, everything else.

 “Guardian can you hear me?”

She was certain it came from the object when the thing got a little closer to her and rotated it’s body in the other direction. She decided to watch it for a while, curious as to see what it would do. Her eyes followed the object as it started moving almost frantically around her head, scanning for something.

“No, no, no.” The object’s front seemed to break apart a little before coming back together. “Please don’t say my Guardian is deaf.”

 She wasn’t deaf by any stretch. She just didn’t know how to respond to such a strange object.

 “Guardian.” The object tried again, “Please say something. Please say you’re not deaf.”

 Was the object pleading? She kinda felt bad for the little thing.

 She nodded slowly as she sat up, alerting the thing to her acknowledgement and scaring her at the same time as the thing moved a little away from her. Did it have emotions? Was it another person trapped in a tiny object? Too much thinking so suddenly hurt. She raised her hands to her head to try and sooth the headache starting in the back of her mind only to be blocked by some sort of invisible barrier. No. That didn’t sound right. She felt around the thing that had stopped her from rubbing her head and quickly realised that it was a helmet. It came off with surprising ease when she grasped the sides of the helmet and tried turning it to the right. The helmet released a small hissing sound as she twisted it then as she lifted it off of her head, a flood of smells and sensations hit her all at once.

“An Awoken?” The object piped up. Her voice sounded a lot less mechanical now that her helmet was off. She hadn’t even realised it sounded that way.

She looked up at the object, squinting to adjust her eyes to the brighter grey sky around her. The helmet seemed to have some sort of tint to it to keep out some of the exposure of the light around her. “What’s an Awoken?” The words fell effortlessly out of her mouth. She didn’t even realise she could speak.

She had apparently startled the object again before it moved itself closer to her. “ **You** are an Awoken, Guardian.” The object projected something weird out in front of it, showing a strange blue creature.

She moved her head to the right, so did the picture. She moved her head to the left, so did the picture. She then lifted a hand to her face, rubbing her gloved hand up and down her cheek and the picture seemed to replicate her actions. Like all other realisations that’d happened since she woke up, it dawned on her that it wasn’t a picture but a reflection of herself. She had glowing, bright orange eyes, pale blueish grey skin and very light blonde, almost silver hair. This was what she looked like? Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail to supposedly keep the hair out of her face and away from the strange white markings. A long, white, thin line ran down the length of her nose whilst, two smaller, shorter lines ran from under the inner corners of her eyes, above her eyebrows were a series of small dots in the shape of an arrow and under her bottom lip. Complex would be the right word for the markings. There were symmetrical dots and lines all over her face. She could only imagine how long it would take to get the dots right.

After a couple moments, the object retracted the projection and moved back in front of her. “I’ve been waiting a while to find you.” The thing said.

 “Why?” She asked, raising a blonde eyebrow.

 “I’m a ghost, well, now I’m your ghost.” The thing now known as the ghost introduced herself, sounding pretty excited. “Things may seem confusing but that’s because you’ve been dead for a long while. You won’t recognise this place or where you are or even what you are because when I brought you back a few moments ago, you lost all memories of your previous life.”

 She nodded slowly, trying to take in the information as best as she could. The ghost was right. It was confusing. She looked down at her helmet and saw her face in the reflection. She was dead but now she was alive? How did that work? “How am I alive?” She really needed to get better at keeping questions to herself.

“It’s easier to explain it all when we get back to the Tower where there are people like you.” The ghost replied. Not helpful at all.

 She didn’t want to argue with the strange thing in front of her so she simply nodded and slowly stood up, making sure to firmly plant one foot on the ground then the other until she was up and on her feet. “So,” She looked down at the ghost. “Where to now?” She held her helmet under one of her arms, having no intention to put it back on just yet when she could see and hear and feel everything around her. The small breeze softly blowing through her hair as the rain pattered onto her face. No way was she going to give that up just yet.

 “The Tower.” The ghost sounded happy. “There’s an evac point about ten miles from here where we’ll get picked up.” The ghost started to move in the direction of the evac point which seemed to be.

 She nodded, understanding most of what the ghost had said. She started to follow the ghost, being careful to move around the debris around them. “Do you have a name?” She couldn’t keep calling the ghost ‘the ghost’.

 “Nova.” The ghost did it’s nod.

 She nodded, Nova was a cool name. “Nova.” She repeated to herself.

 “Yep!” If Nova could smile, she probably was.

 They continued on down the road in a comfortable silence. She looked around the planet she was on, fascinated by everything her eyes came across whilst Nova floated beside her head, moving the front part of her body around, obviously doing something internally. Something bothered her though. Nova had a name, everything around her had a name but she didn’t. Well aside from ‘Guardian’, she had no name. It felt like she needed a name, something her ghost could call her by because ‘Guardian’ sounded very general, like a name given to a group of people. She wanted something to distinguish herself from everything else. “Hey Nova?” She turned to look at the ghost.

“Yes?” Nova turned her attention to her.

 “Am I the only Guardian?” She asked quietly, as if it were a question she shouldn’t ask.

 “No, there are thousands of Guardians, all spread out over the solar system patrolling the planets and defending the Last City. You are just one in ten thousand.” Nova sounded very proud talking about the Guardians.

“There are Guardians on other planets?” She looked toward the cloud covered sky in wonderment that there might be other people like her on entirely different planets.

 “Yes. Guardians patrol and explore many planets and moons in our solar system. A lot of Guardians tend to stick to planets and the larger moons but some explore the smaller and lesser known moons.”

 “So which planet are we on?” She was wondering where exactly they were.

 “We’re on Earth. Specifically England, or what’s left of it.” Nova let out a sad sigh. Who knew her ghost could sigh?

 She looked around the place called England and saw nothing but ruined roads and houses, overgrown fields and wild forests spanning out as far as she could see. Deep to light greens surrounded them on all sides apart from the light grey roads with white lines down the centre so faded, they were almost invisible. It wasn’t lifeless though. The occasional bird flew past them from one forrest to the other whilst an occasional fox or rabbit sprinted around her. It was nice to see that she wasn’t the only living thing for thousands of miles around. She supposed there would be more wildlife if it wasn’t raining but the rain didn’t bother her. She liked the feeling of rain hitting her head, soaking her hair and creating small streams of water down her face.

 “It’s beautiful.” The edges of her mouth twitched upward as she stepped over a decaying tire from a car. The further she looked, the denser the fog became which gave the place an eery calmness to it.

Nova looked over to where she was looking then back to the road ahead of them. “I suppose so.”

 “Have you seen somewhere better?” She wondered where else Nova had been to make her give an answer like that.

 Nova laughed, “Yes. I’ve seen the frozen tundras and freezing desserts of Mars and the raging waves of Titan. Earth is quite boring compared to the other worlds in our system.”

 She shrugged, focusing back on the road that seemed to go on forever. “I like this place.” Well, she didn’t know any other place but that didn’t matter. But Nova did. Just how long had Nova been alive to be on different planets? So many questions for just about everything-

 A sudden roar silenced her thoughts and in an instant, she was looking in front of them at object moving rapidly towards them. Her heart rate and breathing fastened as she quickly put her helmet back on, securing it with a quick twist to the left. “Nova what is that?” She asked nervously, snapping her eyes from the four-legged beast to the ghost then back to the beast. 

 “That’s a Cabal Warhound!” Nova sounded just as panicked as she did.

 “That doesn’t sound good.” She patted all over her body to hopefully try and find any weapon that might be strapped to her. “What is it gonna do to us?” The Warhound let out another ear-piecing roar. It was now close enough to her that she could see the crimson scales covering its body and the metal plating on its head.

“You don’t want to know.” The ghost started frantically looking around, scanning over all of the debris surrounding them for something. “You need a weapon.” Nova muttered to herself.

 She glanced at the ghost every couple seconds, trying to keep most of her attention on the Warhound closing in on them. “I don’t think I can fight it with my fists!” She shouted over to Nova as she raised her hands defensively in front of her face and moved her right foot behind her. She didn’t know how to fight or even defend herself but her muscles seemed to know how so she simply went with it and let her instincts take over.

 “I know!” Nova shouted back.

 The beast was getting closer and closer to the point where it was only a few hundred feet in front of her and she could see its eyes. “Novaaa!” She yelled, shuffling back a bit when the beast roared once more. Was she about to die? Probably! She didn’t want to die so soon after waking up! That’s not how she wanted to go. She wanted to see the planets Nova had told her about and meet the other Guardians like her.

 “Here!” Nova finally gave her an answer. She was by a car closer to the Warhound but she didn’t see any weapons, just jagged pieces of metal.“It will have to do!” It was as if Nova seemed to know what she was thinking.

She nodded, breaking into a sprint over to the car just a couple cars away from her, being careful to note where the Warhound which was almost on her. So close in fact, she could see the dead pupils in its eyes. She skidded to a holt in front of the rusted and decaying car, grabbed the equally as rusty long, jagged piece of torn metal and spun around just as the beast leapt up at her with its claws out and a murderous look in its eyes. She didn’t have time to think as she dived away from the beast, being careful not to stab herself with the piece of metal whilst she avoided the beast that crashed straight into the car instead of her. She quickly stood up, holding the metal tightly in her left hand whilst the Warhound picked itself up off of the tarmac and violently shook its head before it rounded on her again. She looked over the beast and found that it had hurt its shoulder when it dived into the car which gave her a weak point to hopefully target, if it ever got that far.

 “Aim for its paws and its stomach.” Nova suddenly instructed. “It’s okay, I’m still here, I’m not leaving you.”

 She nodded slightly, not entirely sure what she was supposed to think in that moment. When the dog suddenly leapt forward, she side-stepped out of the way and jabbed forward as she did so. She felt the metal pierce the hard skin for just a moment but that was all she needed. She was just happy with the fact that she was able to draw blood from the animal. The beast leapt at her again, this time higher, giving her a chance to step into a crouch as she jabbed the spike upward again, this time catching it in the gut and a lot deeper than her previous attempt. Hearing the beast whine in pain definitely upset her as it was such an unpleasant sound but she had to remember that it was trying to kill her. She still didn’t have to like it.

Thankfully she managed to end the whining quickly when the hound leapt at her one final time and that time she ran at it and dived into a slide as the beast jumped over her and with all of her strength, she stabbed upward and into the soft spot under its’ jaw. She let go of the spike, sliding to a stop and the Warhound came crashing to the ground, lifeless and still. “Bloody hell.” She let out a small relieved sigh.

“You did it.” Nova reappeared in front of her, “Good job Guardian.”

 “Thanks.” She nodded, trying to regain her breath as she slowly stood up to look at the now dead Warhound.

 “You’d make a good Hunter.” Nova commented, following her Guardian as she walked over to the beast.

 “What’s a Hunter?” She knelt down next to it to get a good look at the thing she’d just killed. It was large and red withshiny scales running over its’ entire body. It had some sort of metal headpiece running from its forehead down to the spikes on its back. Maybe it was being controlled by the metal piece?

 “Oh, right!” Nova moved in front of her and a screen with three symbols popped up. “Guardians are sorted into three classes, Warlocks, Hunters and Titans.” Each symbol relating to the class shone as she went. “Warlocks strive to learn the secrets of the universe and the Traveller, and use magic combined with their weapons. They want to learn all they can about everything. Hunters travel all over the solar system, taking huge risks for huge rewards. They are fast and agile and terrifying with a blade. And Titans, they defend Earth and the Last City with their lives. They are immensely strong and serve to protect humanity with their lives.”

 She nodded slowly, looking at each of the symbols again. She had to admit, she was drawn to the middle symbol; Hunter. The other two classes did sound good but the chance to explore the solar system and all of its planets and moons just sounded too good. Even Nova said that she’d make a good Hunter. She slowly lifted her hand to the screen and hovered over the Hunter class. Warlocks had magic, that defiantly sounded like a hell of a lot of fun and Titans were strong as hell and Hunters? They were fast and agile but they didn’t have magic or strength. But she did want to see the rest of the solar system…

She took a deep breath in before she pressed the Hunter symbol. She supposed she could always change her class later if she wanted to.

Nova did her little nod and the screen disappeared. “Good choice, Hunter.”

 She nodded slowly and stood up, looking down at herself to see if anything about her had changed. She had. There was a knife strapped to her hip and a scarf had appeared around her neck. Her clothing felt a bit lighter and more flexible, like she had more room for movement. Her movements felt a tiny bit faster and more agile. She hadn’t noticed it before, but two screens popped up in her helmet. The one to the lower left was made up of three long boxes each displaying a set of two horizontal lines for something. A weapon maybe? Above the boxes was a long, semitransparent line for something with a triangle symbol to it’s left she supposed should have a symbol in it. Whatever it was, it was definitely not there before. As for the other screen, at the top of her helmet, was a long white bar of something. “Nova, what are the displays?” She asked, completely lost.

 “Oh, the one to the bottom left indicates what weapons you have equipped and the one at the top is your health bar.”

 She looked down at her ghost, completely confused. “What?” She quickly removed her helmet again, uncomfortable with the confusing screens.

 “Let’s keep moving and I’ll explain it to you on the way.” Nova moved past her and down the decaying street.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter! Woo! Yeah...
> 
> Also published on Wattpad if you prefer that site (it has funny gifs and images) 
> 
> https://www.wattpad.com/story/150318633-the-awoken-hunter


	4. Chapter Two

  

Ten miles seemed to be a lot further than she had originally guessed. She’d asked Nova once or twice how for away the ‘evac point’ was and both times shed replied with eight miles. She guessed they’d been walking for well over half an hour yet they seemed to get no where. Piles and piles of rusted cars, endless cracks in the roads and more trees surrounding them than she cared to count. It was a pretty boring walk but she was glad there weren’t any more Warhounds trying to rip her apart. She’d just come back, she liked being alive.

“Nova, please tell me it isn’t eight miles any more?” She asked, looking down at the ghost.

“You’ll be pleased to know that it’s now seven and a half miles to the evac point.” Nova looked back up at her.

“What is an ‘evac point’ exactly?” She stepped over the umpteenth rotting tire. She could just step around the tires and debris but she couldn’t be bothered. “You keep saying that and I have no clue what you are talking about.”

“‘Evac point’ stands for ‘evacuation point’. Evac points are safe areas in which a Guardian can land or take off without being gunned down by any enemies. You can land where ever you want on a planet or a moon but it’s generally advised against doing so.” Nova explained happily. The ghost always seemed to be happy to explain things to her. Maybe it made her feel important?

She looked around, finding plenty of grass clearings for places to land. “Sooo, how do I know where an evac point will be?” If there were so many clear areas then why would they need dedicated landing points?

“When we get to the Tower, Cayde-6 will give you everything you need. It should include all of the evac points if his information is up to date. And no, just because there are wide areas big enough to land, it doesn’t mean there aren’t any enemies hidden around.” Once again, Nova seemed to know what she was thinking.

She started down at the Ghost in disbelief. “How the?” How did she know what she was thinking?

“It’s a common thought among new Guardians.”

“Of course it is.” She muttered, taking her helmet from under her arm to get a proper look at it. The helmet was mainly brown with large tinted goggles and a pipe going from the weird triangle in the middle of where her mouth would be to the back. Maybe it supplied air from somewhere? The mysteries she would figure out at one point or another.

Suddenly, she felt a heavy, flexible object hit her foot making her trip over onto the hard and unforgiving concrete. “Goddamnit.” She hissed, hitting the side of her head on ground as her helmet went tumbling out of her hand.

“Careful hunter.” Nova piped up, moving down to her eye level.

She lifted a hand to her forehead as she sat up and looked around for her helmet. “You could’ve warned me.” She winced when the palm of her hand touched the already sore spot where she’d hit her head.

“I thought you could see where you were going.” Nova moved her body to the right. It looked a bit like a shrug. “I’ll make sure you don’t trip in the future.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” She nodded, getting to her feet. She spotted her helmet a few feet away from them and went to pick it up only to hear a second ear piercing roar. She snapped her head up and found the pleasant sight of a warhound almost on her. “Shi-“

 

 

 

Rayner 

 

 

 

“Guardian!”

She jolted awake, scrambling to her feet with the knife from her belt in her left hand to take on the Warhound. She frantically searched the area for the blasted beast. She didn’t remember blacking out, only the wide open jaw of the Warhound as it attacked her head. “Where is it?!” She exclaimed angrily. How had she not seen the beast coming?

“Calm down!” Nova flew appeared in front of her in a cloud of light blue sparks. “The beast wandered off after it killed you.”

Anger quickly turned to sheer confusion. “What?” She dropped her arms to her sides. “I died?”

“Yes.” Nova nodded. “The Warhound crushed your jaw and neck, sniffed around a bit then ran off.”

She looked down at her hands and the knife she was holding in disbelief, “How is that possible?”

“Once we find our guardians, ghosts have the ability to resurrect their guardian. The light of the Traveller flows through me and into you, allowing me to bring you back when you die and heal you when you get injured.” Nova explained once more, moving closer to her to get a look at her neck.

She raised a hand to her neck, running her fingers over the skin tight collar to try and feel if anything was torn or damaged. Amazingly nothing was. No sticky substances, no tears, no anything. She pulled her hand away expecting to see something but again, nothing. How was there nothing? There should’ve been blood everywhere, the fabric torn to shreds, her armour dented and scratched to hell. “The hell…” She muttered, shaking her head as she stashed her dagger away. 

“Everything will be explained once we get to the Tower.” Nova repeated, sounding a bit irritated. “Let’s just keep moving or that beast will eventually come back.”

“I’ll be ready next time.” She furrowed her brows, following Nova down the road after retrieving her helmet that seemed to pick up the habit of rolling away from her. 

Nova seemed to go back to doing whatever she had been doing before the Warhound had attacked, leaving her to her thoughts and the scenery around them. Just how could resurrection be possible? To her knowledge, once you were dead you were dead. There was no arguing with that but there she was, walking down the abandoned street, resurrected twice, breathing and alive. Not only did the resurrection bring her back but it also seemed to heal the injuries that killed her and the armour that would’ve been ruined. She could understand the part about reviving her body, just not the bit about mending her outfit. Maybe the resurrection took her back to a state before she was injured? No, that didn’t seem right. In fact nothing about it seemed right at all but who was she to question it anyway? She was just glad to still be alive no matter how it was done.

She looked up to the grey sky, squinting as the rain pattered onto her face. If there was one thing she could find comfort in, it was the rain. It had been raining since she woke up and didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon. The droplets were cold, small and rhythmic. It didn’t batter into her, rather just ran down her face and splashed onto her outfit. The clothing she wore completely covered her body up to her jaw and made it a bit hard to feel anything. The gloves weren’t thick enough to block out all textures, if she ran a hand over a tire she would be able to feel the grooves and the indents but she wouldn’t be able to feel the finer scratches and dents. The rain however had nothing to block it on her face, slowly drenching her hair, making her blink faster than usual to keep the water out of her eyes. Putting on her helmet would stop her from feeling the rain and the wind and smelling everything around her so there was no way she was doing to do that unless absolutely necessary.

“A Fallen transport ship?!” Nova exclaimed, snapping her out of her thoughts.

Her eyes darted to the skies in search of the ship and watched as a huge round ship flew above them, a low and loud rumbling noise following the ship as it passed by. “That doesn’t look good.” She clutched her helmet tightly. 

“No it’s not. Run!” The ghost disappeared, “And helmet on!”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes, jamming her helmet on before she broke into a sprint down the street, towards the direction of the Fallen ship. Nova didn’t say which way to run.“If I’m running towards that ship, I’m gonna need a weapon!” She shouted, hoping Nova would hear her.

“Hopefully the ship landed past the evac point.” Nova’s voice came through a moment later, “If not, well… we’ll figure it out when it happens.”

“Helpful.” Another eye roll. She dodged around a rusted over, bent to hell lamppost.

“I’m trying to do my best.” If Nova could eye roll as well, she would’ve. 

“Just please tell me I might get something other than a rusted spike to defend myself?” She could just about see the Fallen ship slowing down in the distance meaning it was probably landing before the evac point. She didn’t think she could defend herself with just a dagger either.

“There might be something Hunter, a spear or something.” Nova was panicked, that much was certain. 

“Do the Warhounds belong to the Fallen?” She questioned, side stepping to avoid a particularly large car.

“No. Warhounds are Cabal. But that does make me wonder where those Warhounds came from. They are always accompanied by Cabal.”

“I’m just gonna take your word for it.” She nodded to no one in particular. The weirdly shaped ship was getting bigger and more visible the closer she got to it. She would definitely need something a lot better than a rusty spike or her dagger. She didn’t know what she expected to face but it was probably something a lot bigger than the Warhounds and a lot more of them if Nova was that worried about encountering the ‘Fallen’. 

She all too quickly reached the Fallen ship in what looked to be an old plaza, the buildings around them decayed and destroyed by hundreds of year of abandonment and erosion. She ducked behind a half wall once used as a stone wall to border a garden of a house. The Fallen ship had landed in the centre of the circular plaza and what she supposed was the ‘Fallen’ were exiting the ship and scanning around the area. The weird things were tall, definitely taller than her, haunched over with two sets of glowing eyes on either side of their armoured heads. They looked quite human with only two arms and legs and adorning armour similar to hers. They weren’t quite human though. They seemed to only have two toes on each toe and two fingers and a thumb on each hand. They looked so vicious and deadly and ready to kill her. All of them carried long and glowing spears. Maybe she could steal one of the spears? 

She was about to look away when a different, larger Fallen stepped out of the ship. That fallen had bulkier and heavier armour, four arms, and a sword in its top two hands. The thing had a huge helmet with weird metal ears maybe? Whatever it was, it was probably in charge and looked ready or a fight, something she definitely didn’t want to do.

“That’s the Fallen.” Nova chimed in. “Just Dregs and a Captain. Dregs individually are little threat but in numbers they can be very dangerous and the Captain will have a shield making it harder to kill it.”

She nodded as she rested her head against the brick wall, trying to work up the courage to face the weird enemy. “Any suggestions?” She asked almost rhetorically. 

“Try and get one of the Dregs’ spears and take them out first. Leave the Captain for last. Don’t stop or stay in one spot for too long that’s how they’ll get you. Just keep moving and you might have a fighting chance then.”

“Alright.” She nodded and peaked out to get another look at the Fallen before she took them on with only agility and a dagger. “This is crazy.” She couldn’t help but laugh slightly. There was a pretty good chance she was going to die to get through to the evac point.

“Without a weapon, yes.” Nova replied.

“Screw it.” She pushed herself away from the wall and slowly stood up to avoid being spotted immediately. In total there were about six ‘Dregs’, each carrying a spear so she was pretty spoilt for choice. One was drifting towards the edge of the group, looking at something in the distance. Probably the best one to go for. 

She crouched down as she started to sneak towards the Dreg, trying to stay away from its eyes. Each step was painfully slow and quiet to try and create as little noise as possible which seemed to work. She glanced to the rest of the Dregs and the Captain to make sure they were looking in the opposite direction whilst she crept around in a wide circle to the right of the thing to sneak up and take it down from behind. She quietly unsheathed her dagger and held it tightly in her left hand. She slowly reached the Dreg and once she was close enough, she jumped up and onto its’ back as she stabbed her dagger into its neck over and over and over, earning high pitched screeches and attempted stabs at her head with the things’ spear until the thing fell to the ground with a final screech and a bright white light erupted out of it.

 

**_SCREEEECH_ **

 

She whipped her head around to the source of the deafening screech and found all five of the remaining Dregs sprinting towards her with their spears aimed directly at her. She stashed her dagger away before she snatched the glowing blue spear from the dead Dregs’ hand and bolted to her feet, whirling around to face them fully. “Whoops.” She mumbled, feeling her hands shaking violently. 

“That probably wasn’t the best move.” Nova added.

“Probably not.” She nodded before she suddenly dived to the left as a Dreg tried to charge at her. Another Dreg lunged towards her, aiming low at her stomach for a chance to impale her. She narrowly dodged to the left a second time then swung her own spear at the Dreg, managing to knock the spear violently to the side giving her the prefect window to strike its side.

Swiftly, her spear struck its side and with a scream the Dreg fell to the ground. Dead. “They’re not so tough.” She smirked.

“Look out!”

For the second time she just missed a spear aimed at her head and replied with a loud grunt and her spear in its head. It felt a bit like dancing as she dodged and weaved around the Dregs attacks. Each movement flowing into the next one and repeating the same moves over and over to keep ahead of the enemy. One by one the Dregs slowly fell to her spear, each taken out by a vicious jab to wherever the spear could land a hit on. The Dregs turned out to be surprisingly easy to take down and only required a few hard hits at most to kill them. She soon stood opposite the Captain, breathing heavily, dead Dregs laying on the ground around her, and her spear dripping with blue blood as she held it out to her side.

 “Good job Hunter.” Nova sounded happy.

 “Just one more left.” She cockily pointed her spear at the Captain which only seemed to enrage the Fallen. It let out an ear piercing screech and she quickly realised that it was the Captain who had screeched after she’d killed the first Dreg. The loudness of the cry suddenly made sense to her.

“It won’t be as easy as the Dregs. Captains have shields.”

 “And I have a spear.” She furrowed her brows and let the Captain run at her. The swords it held were swinging wildly as it kept crying and screeching to try and scare her.

 She let out her own raw yell before she sprinted straight towards the Captain, moving her spear as far back to her side as her arms could reach to impale the stupid but large thing through what she presumed was its gut.

 

“It’s not that si-“

 

 

Rayner 

 

 

“Hunter!”

She snapped her eyes open, taking in the deepest breath she’d ever taken. She rolled onto her feet, scooping up the fallen spear and clenched it tightly in both of her hands, facing the Captain who was walking out of its ship again. The thing looked like it had taken no damage from her spear meaning it’d hit her before she hit it. It didn’t make sense though. If she was that close to the Captain for it to land a hit on her with its swords then how hadn’t her spear got him at the same time or earlier? Had something stopped her spear?

“Hunter you didn’t listen!” Nova shouted angrily.

“Because I had it!” She argued, inadvertently getting the Captains’ attention.

 “No you didn’t.” Nova sighed heavily. “If you’d just listened to me, I would’ve told you to watch out for the Arc shield surrounding the Captain. Your spear won’t do any damage to it until you wear down the shield enough to break it. That’s the only way you’ll be able to kill it.” She explained, utter annoyance lacing her voice. 

“Okay, okay.” She barrel rolled out of the way when the Captain charged at her just like the Dreg had. “I’ll listen to you this time.”

  
“Good. Try slicing at the shield.”

“Got it.” She nodded and did just that. With each slash, she jumped backwards, ran around the Captain to confuse it then attacked the shied before repeating in the opposite direction. She didn’t know how much damage she was doing to it but she guessed she was doing something as the shield started to dull. “I’m going to have to start to keeping a tally of the amount of times I’ve died.” She smiled wearily as she felt a bead of sweat streak down her forehead and drip onto her helmet. Damnit did she hate the helmet. Not only could she not feel the rain but the helmet seemed to get hotter the more she moved and dodged around.

 “Worry about that later. Watch out for its attacks!”

 She swiftly evaded the clawed hand trying to puncture her helmet and head. She took the opportunity to thrust her spear up at the shield and finally break the semi-translucent guard, allowing her spear to keep going. The spear accidentally pierced the supposed armpit of the lower set of arms. An accident that proved to work in her favour when the Captain reeled back in pain and held its armpit tightly to try and stop the blue blood that’d started to ooze down its side as soon as her spear was yanked out.

 “Good hit. Keep going.”

 Her grin only grew as she lunged at the Captain again and again, barely managing to land small hits on its body. The thing was surprisingly swift and agile to be able to dodge the attacks that’d taken down all of the Dregs. More and more beads of sweat dripped down her face and her breaths became harsher and more painful each time she took a shallow breath in. She was quickly running out of strength and power behind each jab, making her yell in frustration. “Fuck it!” She threw her spear to the side and grabbed her dagger.

 “Hunter calm down!” Nova warned.

 “No!” She put everything into her final lunge with her dagger raised high above her head. She slammed into the Captain and brought her dagger down on it again and again and again as the Captain fell onto its knees then onto its back, using its own weight and hers against it to force it to the ground. The thick blue substance flew up everywhere around her as she kept stabbing the Captain to vent out all of her rage and aggression built up towards the Fallen for killing her and making her run so far and for so long. Each stab was accompanied with an uncontrollable shout, serving as another way to release her pent up rage.

 Nova appeared in front of her and flew directly over the area the knife was about to come down on the Captain yet again. “Hunter! Stop!”

 She quickly stopped herself before she brought the dagger down on the one thing that could bring her back to life. She panted heavily as she let the dagger fall out of her hands and her arms fall to her sides a moment later. Tears stung her eyes, “Damn.” She laughed slightly.

 “Get all the rage out?” Nova rotated her body to the left.

 She shakily removed her helmet, “Yeah.” She gave the ghost a small nod.

 “Well, shall we keep moving?” Nova moved toward the road leading out of the plaza.

 She nodded and stood up. She looked down at the Fallen Captain for a moment, debating whether to take anything from it as a reminder of the first Captain she took down. She knew it definitely wasn’t going to be the last time she encountered a Captain by the way Nova had talked about the Fallen. She noticed it was wearing a deep red scarf just above the chest plate and decided to take that as the reminder. She grabbed it and put it on around her neck to save herself from carrying it along with her helmet and spear then quickly retrieved her Fallen spear drenched in the Fallens’ blood before jogging over to Nova who was waiting for her near the road out of the plaza.

 “So,” She started, looking down at the ghost when she caught up to her. “How many miles to the evac point?”

 “Seven miles.” Nova stated bluntly.

“What?!” She almost gagged on air. “I just ran like three to get to the here!”

 “I’m kidding.” Nova laughed. “It’s just over five miles now.”

 She let out a sigh of relief. “Thank god.” She slumped forward slightly, relieved to hear that she didn’t have to walk seven miles. Seven miles just seemed like half a planet away. “Hey Nova?” A thought suddenly crossed her mind.

 “Yes?” The little ghost looked up at her.

 She looked down at the spear she was carrying, “Do Guardians have names? You don’t just go around calling everyone Guardian, right?” She did wonder if she had a name. Both times she’d been resurrected she’d heard a very faint word whispered in the back of her mind. She couldn’t make out what it was and the first time she wasn’t sure if she’d even heard it but she knew it had to be something otherwise it wouldn’t be the same word a second time. Maybe it was a name?

“Of course. Cayde-6 is an Exo Hunter. Cayde is his name and the ‘6’ is for the amount of times he’s been reset. Exo’s have to be reset when they go through a traumatic event or their brain gets full. Talk to an Exo when we get to the Tower, they’ll be able to tell you more about it.” Nova explained. “Zavala is an Awoken Titan, your race, and Ikora Rey and Shaxx are both humans. Most, if not all Guardians have names or nicknames if they don’t have names.”

 She nodded slowly. “Do you know my name or is ‘Hunter’ my name?” If every Guardian had a name then she should as well, right?

 “‘Hunter’ is the general name given to your class. You can tell me to call you something else but until you do so, Hunter is the name I’m to call you. So no, I don’t know your name.” The ghost shook her head.

 “Can I choose my own name then as neither of us know my name?” She sounded so stupid in that moment.

 “I guess.” Nova rotated her body to the right again. “Just pick a name that feels right.”

 She looked around her thinking of all the words or names she knew. Apart from the names Nova had told her about, she didn’t know any whereas she knew pretty much the name for every object around her but none of them sounded like a name at all. Well, Sky sounded a bit like a name going off of the ones she’d been told about. “List of some names related to the sky.” She thought out loud.

“Sure. Amaya, Wendy, Aella, Raine, Skylar, Summer, Cecilia, Reva…”

Cecilia? That sounded cool and kinda familiar. It sounded like a light, airy name, like something from the Heavens. Yeah. That was her name. “Cecilia.” She stated.

“Is that the name you choose Hunter?” Nova looked back up at her. 

“Yeah. Cecilia.” She nodded, happy with her choice.

Nova expanded her body so each piece was circling around her in a sort of bluish hue, exposing the core of the ghost. A small, dark grey ball. It amazed her how something so small could hold so much knowledge. “Alright. Cecilia. Added name to preferred title.”

Cecilia smiled slightly, knowing she had a name for people to call her by. Not Guardian or Hunter but Skylar. It felt like a personalisation and identification to herself. Weird but cool.

A ship zoomed past them, making both look up to see what it was. The ship was sleeker, smaller and looked like it was designed to carry only a couple people. “Please don’t let that be another Fallen ship.” Ceciliagulped. She definitely did not have the energy to face off against more Fallen.

“Hey Nova, picked up your beacon. Got a Guardian with you?” A somewhat friendly sounding voice came through from Nova.

“Holliday, finally! I was wondering when you’d pick up.” Nova sounded overly happy as her body broke apart and started circling around her once more. 

“You know me, fashionably late but not as late as Cayde.” ‘Holliday’s voice sounded somewhat scratchy, as if she’d been yelling a lot.

“Well we’ll meet you at the evac point if that’s where I presume you’re heading?” Nova continued with a slight laugh.

“So you do have a Guardian.”

“An Awoken Hunter.” Nova sounded pretty pleased with herself.

“On Earth? Rare but not the first time that’s happened. They got a name?”

“Cecilia.”

“Hey Cecilia, I’ll introduce myself properly at the evac point but for now just keep heading in the direction you’re going and I’ll see you guys soon.”

Cecilia nodded and stayed silent, not really knowing how to reply.

“See you soon.” Nova replied for her.

As soon as the coms went dead she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “She’s another Guardian?” She thought out loud.

“Not to my knowledge.”

She nodded, focusing back on the grey sky around her, hoping they’d get to Holliday before they encountered any Fallen again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! Woo...
> 
> Also, why do these websites never have the option to choose the font size for certain words??
> 
> Also published on Wattpad if you prefer that site (it has funny gifs and images)  
> https://www.wattpad.com/story/150318633-the-awoken-hunter


	5. Chapter Three

“Wait, how are Hunters the weakest class?” Cecilia frowned. Hunters were her class after all.

Nova shook her head, “Well statistically, they are, but in action, they’re not. Hunters may not be the strongest or the most powerful but they are versatile. Hunters are very ‘squishy’ for instance. They sacrifice strength and magic for endurance and agility. Titans may be able to punch their way out of a fight but Hunters are able to dodge and run away from the fight to get to a safe distance to come up with a different approach or let someone else take over.”

“So we have the ability to run away.” She sighed.

“No, well, yes, but that’s not the point. Hunters aren’t limited to what they can do. Warlocks are limited to using magic with almost every attack to be effective and Titans rely upon their sheer strength alone. Hunters can take a step back and plan the best angle of attack or run rings around high level enemies, using the enemies’ weak spots to their advantage. Don’t look at speed and agility as bad things. It doesn’t matter if you can’t punch a wall down or create a black hole, Hunters can sneak through enemy strongholds undetected or steal a Cabals loot from right under their noses if they wanted to.” Nova explained calmly.

“I guess.” She shrugged as she spotted the ship come into view. “But some strength or magic would be nice.”

“Hey guys,” Hollidays’ voice came through Nova. “Just picked you up on my radar.”

“Just picked you up on ours as well.” Nova replied happily.

“We have a radar?” Cecilia thought out loud.

“Running on a bit of a tight schedule today, think you can run the last leg?”

Nova looked up at Cecilia who gave her a slight nod, “I can if you want.” She shrugged before she begrudgingly put her helmet back on then promptly broke into a fast sprint.

“Hey! Wait up!” Nova zoomed after her guardian in a desperate attempt to catch up.

“Fly faster!” Cecilia smirked, glancing back to see Nova struggling to match her speed. If she ever wanted to get away from Nova, she would just have to run away and hide from the Ghost. Didn’t sound too hard.

She reached the ship a lot sooner than Nova did and let out a victorious laugh and a wave to her Ghost flying as fast as she could to reach her. At a much closer look, the ship was large with what she guessed were the engines on either side of the body of the ship sticking out almost horizontally, looking almost as large as the body. The front was a dull point with weirdly shaped windows on top whilst the rest of the ship seemed to get larger, almost like a stomach in a way with fins on the sides and at the ends. It looked pretty cool.. The upper half of the ship was white while the lower half was a dark grey. A lot better than the large dark brown bubble that was that Fallen ship

She was about to touch the ship when a person materialised beside her in a slow flash of blue sparks much like Nova did, making her jump backwards in shock. “What the hell?” She cursed by accident.

“Language.” Nova finally stopped next to her before turning to meet the strange person. “Holliday.” She did a little nod.

So that was Holliday? The woman was shorter than her with beach blonde hair, stormy blue eyes and faint freckles dusted over her face and shoulders. She had black skin on one shoulder with a few lines of black skin going down her arm, each line getting thinner as they reached her elbow. She appeared to be in some sort of skin tight flight suit with a large leather belt with pouches on one side around her hips and a slightly dirty red scarf with some sort of black design around her neck. Large and thick gloves covered her hands as did heavy steel tipped boots. She had black stains littered around her arms, oil maybe? She looked like someone who would work with the ship she’d just appeared from. Short but muscular. A mechanic?

“Hey Nova.” Holliday greeted the ghost with a warm smile, “So let’s see your new guardian.” She gestured to Cecilia.

Cecilia nodded and quickly removed her helmet for the umpteenth time, glad to be rid of the stupid thing blocking her from feeling the rain that’d started to get a little bit heavier.

“Woah.” Holliday seemed to be taken aback. “Now that is rare.”

“What?” Cecilia asked nervously, looking back and forth from Holliday to Nova. Had she done something wrong? Was she wrong? Was she supposed to be something else like a different colour or not an ‘Awoken’? Were her bright orange eyes the wrong colour or not meant to be glowing? Was her hair too white? “Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No, no, no, no.” Holliday quickly shook head, blinking furiously. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. Just Awoken are almost never reborn on Earth and when they are, they aren’t as, well, bright as you are.”

“Uhhhh.” Cecilia laughed nervously, “Okay then?”

“No-“ Holliday face palmed. “That wasn’t the right word. It’s hard to explain but, take your eyes for instance, only Reef Awoken have eyes that shine that brightly. And your skin, it’s got that glowy thing that Zavala has.” Another blank look from the new Awoken. “You’ll understand when we get to the Tower. Anyway, I’m Amanda Holliday, the Towers’ shipwright.” She extended a hand for her to take.

“Nice to meet you.” Cecilia accepted her hand. “Cecilia.”

“Nice to meet you too Cecilia.” Holliday shook her hand for a moment later before letting go to turn her gaze to Nova, “Let’s get going. Faze her into the cockpit.”

Nova nodded and disappeared into blue sparks.

One moment she was standing in front of Holliday and the next she was being dropped into a small room. She landed with a loud bang on something metallic and immediately scanned the strange area. There was a single chair in front of her facing the strange windows with panels sticking out around the chair. To her left were a couple crates strapped to the wall with bright orange strips of fabric. Above the crates was a rectangular box with a green cross on the front and a red cylinder with a weird black nozzle, both strapped down with the same orange material. To her right was a piece of metal sticking out of the wall, probably a table, with various bits of paper stuck down to the surface and on the wall above. Each piece of paper had sketches and writing of all sorts of things. No two drawings were the same and she understood none of them. She turned around and was faced with a dark grey, almost black door leading to probably the rest of the ship. She had no clue what laid beyond the door and was itching to find out but she stopped herself from doing so when a large thump much like the one she’d made rang throughout the small room. It was the cockpit Holliday had mentioned.

“Alright, we should be at the Tower in a couple minutes.” Said Holliday as she turned around to watch the Shipwright walk up to the chair and sit down in it, pulling some sort of straps connected to either side of the chair across her body.

“Any Guardians around the Tower today?” Nova asked as she and Cecilia moved to the front of the cockpit.

“Yeah, most of the Guardians are home today. Not much happening at the moment. Just a couple strikes on Venus and Mars.” Holliday replied as she flicked switches and pulled a few leavers before grasping the stick in front of her and gently pulled it towards her, making the ship roar to life.

Cecilia stumbled back slightly as the ship slowly lifted off the ground and started moving forward at an increasing speed. She grasped the handle bar on the back of the chair just before Holliday pushed a leaver forward and the ship abruptly shot forward up through the thick cloud layer. As soon as she steadied herself her jaw dropped open and her eyes widened at the absolutely stunning sight before her. Endless rolling clouds blanketing the ground below, the bright blue sky stretching as far as the eye could see, small cloud spikes sticking out of the sea of white. It was all so beautiful. The sky was a very pale, light blue on the horizon which brightened to a very warm blue then faded to a deep blue. It so mesmerising she could just watch the sky for hours.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Holliday brought her out of her trance.

She managed to nod. “Yeah.”

“You should see the skies of Mars.” Holliday chuckled as they banked to the right.

She nodded slightly, “I want to.” She almost whispered.

“Well you can soon, we’re flying over the EDZ now. We’ll be at the tower in about a minute.”

“Already?” Her eyes only widened.

“Yeah.” Holliday nodded, “Our ships can travel at the speed of light so it takes no time at all to get from England to the Tower. When Nova radioed through, I expected her to be somewhere like Io or Neptune, not Earth.”

“Neither did I.” Nova shook her body.

Cecilia zoned their conversation out as her eyes wandered back to the infinite sky around them. She could faintly see something zooming out through the atmosphere and guessed it was another ship like theirs. The ship was going so fast it left a long cloud spike through the sky like other ships had. It got her thinking about having her own ship. Sure she didn’t know how to fly but it couldn’t be too hard right? Holliday seemed to be doing fine and she was having a conversation with Nova. It would be cool to fly her own ship, hoping from planet to moon all over the system, seeing what each planet had to offer. Did other guardians have the same thoughts as her? The insatiable want to explore?

“Cecilia.” Nova repeated.

She tore her eyes away from the boundless sky to look at the ghost, “What?”

“We’re here.” Nova nodded her body to the window.

“Tower approach this is Shipwright Holliday, requesting permission to land in Hangar One, over.” Holliday pressed button to the right of her as she spoke.

“Shipwright Holliday, you have permission to land in Hangar One, over.” A robotic, male voice replied.

Holliday quickly removed her finger from the button, “Alright, I’m gonna do a flyby of the Tower watch and drop you guys off before I go land.” She stated.

Cecilia nodded only for her breathing to hitch and her eyes to widen when she caught sight of ‘The Tower’. It was a huge Goliath of a building, standing way above the large wall circling around the city. It looked to be split up into two areas. The lower area was a giant white slab, tilted backward slightly and had a thinner rectangle sticking out of the middle of the slab which supported the upper area, a thin but large platform that kinda looked like the ships’ wings. She couldn’t make out much of the detail aside from the two identical triangles sticking upward in the centre of the platform. It looked like it was flying in a way.

“Welcome to the Tower.” Nova looked up at her.

“Prepare to drop.” Holliday grinned, brining the ship around to the courtyard.

“What?” Cecilia let go of the chair to quickly retrieve her spear and helmet.

“Snow-3 will meet you soon.”

Nova expanded her body and before she knew it, she was falling.

She slammed onto the hard ground and felt her spear and helmet leave her hands whilst her face erupted in a white hot pain.

“Cecilia!” Nova shouted, appearing in front of her.

Cecilia slowly lifted her head up, feeling something warm and thick trickle down her chin. “What the hell?” She blinked slowly, trying to clear her vision. Everything around her was blurry. Different coloured figures moved around her, some stopped whilst others kept walking. Dark green blobs were dotted around the place mixed in with some red streaks slowly blowing in the wind.

“You were meant to land on your feet.” Nova shook her body before expanding it to let out a white light that surrounded her, making her feel a lot better. Her vision quickly cleared, the thick substance stopped oozing and the headache she didn’t realise she’d sustained died back.

She shakily got to her hands and knees, “You could’ve told me th-“

She was cut off by a heavy object slamming into her back, forcing her to the ground once more. She quickly turned her head around only to come face to face with a hulking, giant brute standing over her, his face painted with a white skull. The brute seemed to be glaring down at her, as if he was pissed she’d interrupted something.

“Get out of my way, hunter.” The brute growled before he walked over her. She wheezed as she felt his entire weight pushed down on her for just a second. “Fucking Hunters…” She heard him mutter.

Once the tanned brute had walked away from her, she quickly scrambled to her feet to avoid someone else landing on her. “Who was that?” She grabbed her spear then went to get her helmet which had disappeared. Had it started rolling away from her on its own or something? She scanned the polished ground around her to no avail. It had just disappeared.

A pair of simple white boots stopped in front of her, one boot had rope tied around it and a holster above it. She slowly looked up finding more white armour until she came face to face with a set of bright white eyes and a metal face in the same hue. “That would’ve been a Titan.” The person answered, holding her helmet out to her. The persons’ voice was quite high but soft and calming even though it sounded quite mechanical.

Cecilia slowly took the helmet, unsure of how she was supposed to feel in that moment. Scared? Shocked? Unnerved? It was hard to say but she was definitely feeling a little bit of all. “Thank you?” She managed a small nod.

“You’ve never seen an Exo before, have you?” The woman smiled, earning a slight head shake from the Awoken. “That’s alright, I’m Snow-3.” She held out her hand for the dazed-looking Hunter to take. 

“Cecilia.” She cautiously took the Exo’s hand, scared it might blow up or electrocute her. The Exo had a completely pinkish white head with bright white eyes and glowing mouth bits with a splatter of something just as white as her eyes covering her left eye, kinda looked like something had exploded over that eye.

“You must be the new Hunter.” Snow-3 let go of her hand, “I’m one of Cayde’s assistants who help the new Hunters find their way around the tower. This way.” She abruptly turned around and started walking towards a small set of stairs that lead to the rest of the Tower.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took forever create but hey! Chapter 3! Woo! Yeah!
> 
> Also published on Wattpad if you prefer that site (it has funny gifs and images)  
> https://www.wattpad.com/story/150318633-the-awoken-hunter


	6. Chapter Four

 

The tower was **BIG**.

That was the first thing Cecilia learnt about her new home. She'd been taken to the Hangar first to meet up with Holliday and get her ship and speeder, both of which she had no idea how to use. Both Snow-3 and Holliday had assured her that Nova would be able to help her fly but she didn't trust the little ghost very much. How could a tiny object the size of her fist pilot a huge ship like the ones landing and taking off as they'd talked? After the huge hangar she was taken to the North Tower on the opposite side briefly to see the giant rotating orb and a man in white robes hidden behind a white mask called 'The Speaker'. The man said only a few words to her, most of which she didn't really understand then left her to be taken back to the rest of the Tower with Snow-3. Nova seemed to understand what the man had said so she supposed she could always ask her later.

"This place is huge." Cecilia looked around in awe. "I love it."

Snow-3 nodded, "The tower is the home to most Guardians. We have everything we need here. Personal quarters, training rooms, mess halls. We are equipped with everything we need in order to serve and protect the Last City as the Guardians we are."

"Guardians..." Cecilia repeated to herself as she followed the Exo past what she now knew to be Eververse and the Postmaster. She was a Guardian. A Titan and a Hunter walked past her wearing gleaming and shimmering armour, the Titan wearing very large and triangular gauntlets whilst the Hunter wore an intricately golden cape that seemed to have some symbol projecting just above the silky fabric. They were complete strangers to her yet they were the same as her. Guardians.

"Over here is Banshee-44, he's the Towers' gunsmith. He'll trade weapon modifications or guns with you for materials you can find just about anywhere among the planets. He'll also service your guns for a hundred glimmer if you think something's wrong." Snow-3 gestured to an exo standing behind a table filled with guns of all sizes and behind and to the sides of him, racks upon racks of even more guns. Some were mounted to the wall either side of a giant dark grey banner with a diamond shaped, white symbol.

Cecilia cautiously approached the blue and yellow coloured Exo with spikes sticking out of his head. The man cleaning a very long gun looked up as she stopped in front of him and gave her a once over, "A new Hunter? Haven't seen one of you in a while." The Exo's voice was low and mechanical, almost like a growl.

"Banshee." Snow-3 greeted the older-looking Exo happily.

"Snow." Banshee nodded. "Well Hunter, you've got a choice between a pulse rifle, auto rifle, submachine or a scout rifle." He pointed to each of the guns laid out before her.

The auto and pulse rifles looked almost identical, the only difference being the auto rifle was longer than the pulse whilst the submachine was short with a long handle and the scout rifle was the thinnest but the longest. "What does what?" She asked almost sheepishly.

"The pulse fires a burst of three bullets, the auto fires a high rate of bullets at a medium range, the sub fires higher rate at close range and scout fires high impact bullets at long range." Banshee explained as if he'd explained it a thousand times before. "Basically if you want to get up close and personal with the enemy then choose the sub, if you want to be a bit further back but still want to get in there then go with the pulse or auto, they're just a matter of preference, but if you really don't want to get anywhere near them then go with the scout."

Cecilia nodded as she looked over the four guns. She immediately passed over the submachine gun as she really didn't want to get right in the face of a Dreg again. She briefly considered the pulse rifle but the burst fire just sounded too hard to control so it was left to the auto or the scout rifle. The auto was alluring, being able to get close but not too close but then again so was the scout. The scout did sound a bit more safe, like she wasn't going to die if she tried to aim and she'd most likely be at a good distance away so nothing could charge at her. Just scout or auto?

Scout or Auto?

As much as she looked at the auto, her eyes kept wandering to the scout rifle and her hand was just itching to pick it up. "Scout." She submitted to the urge to reach out to it.

"Good choice Hunter." Banshee nodded, picking up the gun for her. "Just remember to clean your gun or it'll jam, as well as the sight, with a scout rifle any dust on the lens could easily look like the enemy."

"Got it." She nodded, accepting the surprisingly heavy weapon "Thanks."

"No problem." Banshee said before turning back to the gun he was cleaning.

She found herself giving the gun a once over before she stashed it on the magnetic clip on her back. She didn't question how she knew how to do that and followed Snow-3 onto their next destination instead. From the Gunsmith Snow-3 took her to the sunken stairs that would take her to the Crucible masters and the Vanguard.

They passed down, through to a long hallway, past a strange-looking woman cradling a glowing green orb who had three glowing green eyes... and into the giant, rich red hall where giant skulls hung from the ceiling on the right and two people stood on either side. One a giant Titan with a horned helmet, well, one horn, the other seemed to have been broken off, dressed in white and orange with fur covering his shoulders. The Titan let out a booming laugh presumably at something one of the Guardians in front of him had said. On the other side was, well, she didn't really know what it was. It seemed to be a robot with a small head that had similar horns to the giant Titan and in similar similar colours to the Titan. The thing seemed to be missing its stomach for some reason. It looked like the person she'd seen talking to a Guardian at the Postmaster.

"The Titan to the right is Lord Shaxx, the Crucible Master." Snow-3 spoke up. "He oversees the matches and tournaments of the Crucible and the Iron Banner. The Crucible's a training ground of sorts that lets Guardians train without the fear of loosing their ghosts or to settle an argument or a bet, either one." The exo explained as they passed the cheerful man.

"What happened to the other horn?" Cecilia thought out loud, almost hypnotised by the Titans' enthusiastic attitude.

"No one knows." Snow-3 shook her head before she motioned to the robot on the other side of the hall. "This is Arcite 99-40, he's responsible for selling and supplying Guardians with Crucible weapons and sparrows."

"What is he?" The question just slipped out.

"He's a Frame." Snow-3 said. "They're like Exo's, only they are programmed with orders and commands to carry out. They're quite similar because they tend to develop personalities if they've been active long enough but they don't have a ghost. Again its a bit complicated."

The large hallway ended at the huge command centre. Huge spines lined the either side of the room up to the ceiling with various manned stations and monitors sat in between. A set of stairs lead down to the sunken area in the middle of the room where a large, rectangular table sat in the middle on a yellow and grey, circular rug. Banners hung from the ceiling down to the sunken sides next to the bookcases built into the small walls. Each banner had a different colour and theme. She didn't recognise two of the symbols but she recognised the middle banner's symbol to be the Hunters'. Three people stood around the table, one at the far end a pale bluish Awoken in huge armour, one on the left a hooded blue and white exo in a slightly ragged cape and a bronze-skinned Human in rich purple robes at the closest end.

She spotted a large orb trapped in four large spikes in front of the large windows at the end of the chamber as she followed Snow-3 down the stairs and over to the Exo.

"Good evening Cayde." Snow-3 smiled as she stopped in front of the darkly dressed Hunter.

The Exo jolted slightly and looked up from his maps scattered around him. "Is it evening already?" He glanced over to the window to find the sun setting. "Huh, so it is."

"Anyway." Snow-3 brought his attention back to them before she motioned to the new Hunter behind them, "We have a new Hunter."

"Yes!" Cayde-6 shouted excitedly, pumping his fists in the air only to get a sharp glare from the Warlock across from him. "Ha ha, yeah, sorry. Good to have another Hunter. I'm Cayde-6, the Official Vanguard Hunter. You got a name?"

"Cecilia." She nodded, slightly scared of the spontaneous Exo.

"Wait, you're not Reef-born?" Cayde was surprised to say the least. The Titan behind him looked up from his scrolls with the same surprise.

"No?" She shook her head. Was it really that bad she wasn't from the 'Reef'?

Nova moved forward, "I found her in Northern England." She answered calmly.

"That's... interesting." Cayde-6 nodded slightly, "Anyway. Welcome to the Tower," He pressed a button on a tablet next to one of his maps. "Here's the 'Official Vanguard Welcome Package', it should help you get started. There's a bit of glimmer in there if you want some Ramen, or to you know, buy stuff you actually need. Just don't spend it all in one place. Nova's been updated with my latest maps, scout reports and patrols if you ever get bored."

"Thanks-"

"CAYDE!"  
  
Cecilia whipped her head around to the source of the interrupting shout only to find a very tanned man dressed in very large and very heavy, shining gold edged, black and dark grey, sleek and angular armour. He was covered in some sort of white, glowing liquid that dripped off of him with every step and seemed to create a line behind whatever he was dragging with one arm. Like her, he wasn't wearing his helmet, exposing his dirty blonde hair, half tied up whilst the rest hung around his shoulders. A very long and deep cut jarred its way down his left eye, down his cheek and under his jaw. A dark crimson substance streamed down his tanned skin and looked like it'd been wiped away at several points but had done little good. Even though the man looked like he was in considerable pain he seemed to be smiling none the less.

Walking behind him and the thing the tanned Titan was dragging along was another Titan. Slimmer than the one in front of him and looked to be a tiny bit taller, the man was paler with darker blonde hair long and loosely slicked back at the top but almost bald at the sides. He had a light stubble of a short-boxed beard that looked like it was taken care of to look specifically like that, not like he'd forgotten to shave in a few days. His right eyebrow was drenched in blood, covering one of his warm blue eyes. The cut didn't look big but rather deep. His left shoulder looked to be in a similar situation, the pauldron was missing and what looked like two long lines cut through the layers of his armour and skin which had caused the left side of his chest plate to become drenched in the dark crimson liquid as well as the white liquid the other Titan was covered in. The man looked equally as in pain as his tanned friend but was smirking as if to say 'yeah but we killed it'.

"What in gods' name have you two done this time, Abram, Wolf?" A voice asked from behind them.

She turned to see the Titan at the end of the table glaring at the two Titans with his arms angrily crossed over his chest. His voice was deep and had a slight accent she didn't recognise to it, making him only look and sound scarier.

"Cheerful as ever Commander Zavala." The paler Titan bowed his head slightly. His accent was harsh and imposing but the nonchalant cheeriness said otherwise.

The tanned Titan shook his head, "You know that Gatelord you put the bounty on Cayde?" He suddenly chucked whatever he was dragging forward and threw it a couple feet in front of him. A loud bang rang out in the expansive room as the giant head of something large... hit the floor and the same white substance that covered the Titans immediately started to pool from what she could only guess to be what was the neck. "We'll take the reward now."

The blue Titan, Commander Zavala shook his head, "You took it on by yourselves?" He asked in slight disbelief.

The head was easily two thirds the size of the tanned Titan. "We were bored." He shrugged through his huge armour. The man had an accent as well, but this one way more relaxed and seemed to go up at the end of sentences. It was far different from his friends' and the new Awokens'. Theirs didn't go up or down at the end of a sentence and they pronounced most if not all syllables of a word rather than the man who seemed to lazily skip over some of them. "And no one was taking the bounty so we figured, why not?"

"I think he got the worse end of the deal." The paler Titan laughed slightly. "We'll heal but, well... he won't."

Cayde nodded excitedly but turned to the new Hunter, "Go get some rest Hunter, this is going to take a while." The Vanguard Hunter seemed excited about the Titans return home. "We'll catch up later."

Snow-3 took the cue, "This way." She motioned to the hallway they'd walked through to get to the command centre.

Cecilia looked back at the two injured but smiling Titans, completely interested in what the two had just done to end up with injuries as bad as theirs and a giant head leaking weird white goo. "Who are they?" It slipped out of her yet again.

"Corey Abram and Adrich Wolf, if I remember correctly." Snow-3 refused to look back at the drenched men. "Two of the more reckless Titans."

"What was that about bounties?" She made an effort to remember the two Titans, forming half a plan to later find them and ask them what they'd done.

Snow-3 shook her head slightly, "Bounties are requests most anyone can put up for Guardians to take on. The Vanguard, civilians, even other Guardians can request something or someone to be taken out. Mostly it's a Cabal or Vex that killed someones friend or beat a Guardian. If you've got the glimmer or valuable resources someone might be after, someone'll take it on. I believe those two just finished the bounty Cayde-6 put on a Gatelord on Nessus." The Exo sounded largely indifferent to the idea of bounties but a tiny bit of distain laced the edges of her explanation.

"Sounds... interesting." Cecilia muttered, stealing another look at the two Titans only to quickly turn her head away when the paler Titan, Adrich Wolf, the one with the harsh accent, caught her looking and his smirk only grew for catching her out.

 

* * *

 

By the time Cecilia's brief tour around the main social area of the Tower had finished and she was settled into her new rooms, or apartment as she'd been corrected, the sun had almost completely set. She was finally alone in the surprisingly spacious and quiet apartment after the hectic first day. She should be exhausted and she had a right to be after killing a Warhound and a group of Dregs along with their Captain, having died twice, and run and walked roughly ten miles to get to the evac point, and all of that was before she'd very ungracefully arrived at the Tower, made enemies with a Titan and had been shown and introduced to the Vendors and various places in the Plaza. As it was late Snow-3 had told her that she didn't get the full tour of the Tower from the upper levels beneath the social area to behind the guarded large doors opposite the Speakers' work area in the North Tower. She'd get the pleasure of exploring them for herself as the Exo had been called away by Cayde-6 to help deal with the two 'reckless Titans'.

The room was large with a small set of a couple steps that ead down from the small landing space just in front of the entrance. To the left was a small workspace with a rectangular table not to dissimilar from the large table in the Vanguard Command Centre, two large sets of empty shelves lined one side of the small area whilst the other was occupied by a singular large touch screen. Opposite on the other side of the room was a leather couch and two arm chairs facing one another with a glass table in the middle, over a simple red rug. Remnants of the previous owner. The rest of the room was barren save for another large touch screen to the left near the corner and a blue crate in the centre of the room over the weird design on the floor. At the end was a massive, oddly shaped window that gave her the perfect view of the Last City and the Traveller. A singular door sat on the slanted wall between the little seating area and the touch screen lead to the bedroom which had a large bed pressed up against one wall with nightstands either side and a closet in the corner. A door on the far wall contained the bathroom, an even simpler room with a shower, toilet and basin. The apartment was large but barren and almost empty, making it feel quite a lonely place.

A quick peak in the blue crate which turned out to be a welcome package from the Vanguard containing basic supplies and clothing, and shower later to wash off the splattered blood, sweat and grime later Cecilia stood in front of the large window, looking out onto the city. She'd dressed in the Vanguard-issued one-size-fits-all tank top and combat pants, and military looking boots. She was mesmerised by the colourful lights of the city and how even though it was eight o'clock at night, the city was still awake. Even the big white ball in the sky looked somewhat alive with the millions of lights illuminating the bottom of it. She could vaguely hear people moving around in the hallway, some laughing and chatting others dragging something.

Wait.

She tore her eyes away from the beautiful lights and sprinted across to the door, jumping over the steps to throw open the door. She ran out into the hallway, whipping her head in one direction then the other in search of the person dragging something. Two darkly armoured Hunters were chatting and laughing down the hallway to the left whilst a golden accented red Exo dressed in a white long sleeved top and military pants similar to hers' strolled casually down the hallway to the right. She caught a glimpse of bronze steel being at the end of the hall just as it disappeared behind the corner to the elevators. "Damnit." She muttered in defeat. She was too tired to chase after the metal that could easily be a piece of armour.

"Hunter?" Nova popped up next to the deflated Awoken. "Why did you suddenly run?"

Cecilia jumped slightly at the sudden appearance of the Ghost. "I heard someone dragging something so I thought it was the two Titans from earlier." She replied, embarrassed at how it sounded out loud.

"Why would you want to find those Titans? Those two are reckless and impulsive even for Titans. I would stay far away from them If I were you." Nova rotated her body.

Cecilia shook her head, "I just wanted to know what they were doing that got them so injured." 'And what planet they were on'. She added mentally.

"You wouldn't want to know." Nova shook her body almost angrily. "Just Titans being reckless and getting themselves hurt. It's not something you'd want to idolise."

Cecilia furrowed her brows slightly, "Do you have something against those two?" She realised arguing with the Ghost out in the hallway where anyone could be listening to their conversation was a bit of a stupid idea but she didn't care, she just wanted to know why the small thing was so against her talking to the two Titans to hear their story.

The Ghost was silent for a long moment, turning away from her Guardian as if she were thinking about something or simply just didn't want to answer the Hunter.

"Nova." Cecilia said.

The Ghost did a little sigh before she turned back to face her. "I have a sort of... rivalry... with the Titans Ghosts..." She admitted quietly.

"How so?" Cecilia pushed, crossing her arms over her chest.

Nova let out an audible sigh. “When the Traveller created us, Devil, Hunter and I made a bet to see who could find their Guardian first. The loser had to paint their shell bright pink. It wasn’t too bad but as the centuries went on and none of us got even remotely close to finding our partners, we decided to up the bet and we kind of roped Cayde into it… and it ended up being that the loser has to wear whichever shell Cayde and the other two Ghosts choose for the first year. Obviously I lost. Hunter found Wolf first nearly a century ago then Devil found Abram about half a century later. I’m sure if the two Titans hadn’t interrupted us Cayde would’ve brought the bet up, or if Devil and Hunter were out with the Titans they would’ve recognised me.” She explained so quietly as to make sure no one else heard, Cecilia had to strain a little to hear the full story.

"So you're hiding from loosing the bet?" Cecilia deadpanned.

"Partly." Nova reluctantly nodded.

Cecilia couldn't resist rolling her eyes, "It's not that bad. Just accept defeat and wear the shell for a year. The sooner you get it over with the better, right?"

"No!" The Ghost suddenly exclaimed. "This is Cayde and Devil I'm talking about! There's a reason Devil was named the way he was!"

Cecilia quickly looked around to see if any Guardians had stopped to check out the sudden outburst. Thankfully no one had, allowing her to focus back on the Ghost. "Fine." She nodded before she started to advance towards the little light as an evil grin started to form on her lips. "I'll just have to take you to them myself!" She suddenly lunged for the Ghost.

Nova barely managed to dodge out of the way, sending her Guardian flying into the closed metal door to their apartment behind her. "That's not happening!" Nova shouted before she whizzed down the hallway the way the glint of metal had disappeared down

"Nova!" Cecilia called after her. She quickly shut the open door to the apartment before she took off into another sprint after the surprisingly fast, pointed, flying white ball. She nearly slammed into the door at the end of the hall in an attempt to turn around the corner she was running that fast to catch the thing that could revive her. "Damnit! Nova I will catch you!" She ran for the elevators just as the doors to one of the elevators that contained her Ghost closed. She skidded to a holt in front of the closed doors, flicking her eyes over to the panel to the left to see where the cheeky Ghost was headed. She was heading up towards the plaza.

She quickly slammed the screen for the other elevator and waited what felt like an agonisingly long time for the elevator to reach her level from the depths below. Once the doors were open, she quickly entered and pressed for the plaza at the top then for the lift doors to close.

"Identification please." A robotic voice asked.

Shit. Of course without a Ghost operating the lifts, she had to give her ID. _Thank you Snow-3_. She had to remember back to the ID Snow-3 had made nova pull up so she could use the lifts when she wanted. "Uhh GDNHTR00468...3?" She hoped it was the right one and the right way to give the ID or she had just stupidly said the wrong code out loud to herself in a stationary lift.

"Accepted, Hunter." The voice confirmed before the lift jolted to life.

Cecilia let out a small, victorious sigh. Thank whoever the ID had an easy pattern to remember. She leant against the railing lining the walls of the elevator whilst the elevator took her up the thirty or so levels to the top. A harsh white light lit the large metal box and some sort of music played in the background, nothing particularly pleasing to the ear or to listen to any other time than waiting to go from level to level. Where could Nova run to if she was heading up top? The Hangar had lots of dark hiding spots perfect for a small object but Nova's 'eye' was bright and would make her easy to spot in the dark spots. The Traveller's Walk, the large grassy space behind the two triangular arches? It was rather simple and out in the open but there were lamps she could hide near. Then again, when Snow-3 had showed her the area there were quite a few Guardians hanging around and it was etching on the early evening. There was a good chance the space could still be busy. Where else was there to go?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the lift coming to a stop and the doors opening a moment later, allowing the Awoken to speed walk out of the large box and back out onto the plaza, now dark and lit by lights on the ground, illuminating the various banners and the stairs around the place. "Now where are you?" She thought out load, glancing over to the other lifts to find the lift Nova had used open. She was up here.

She headed for the vaults first, looking around at every conceivable hiding spot for even a glimpse of a light blue light hidden in the dark. "Novaaa!" She called out, attracting the attention of a brightly coloured Hunter at one of the vault ports. She hoped her call would prompt her to see something wizzing across from somewhere.

No such luck would be had making her head for the Traveller's Walk. She wouldn't go to the North Tower, someone would recognise her, nor the Hangar, the Ghost had acted strangely, well strange for the day she'd known the little thing, whilst they were talking to Holliday and having a quick look around the noisy area. She could make quite a bold move and hide in the Command Centre right next to Cayde-6 or one of the Frames dotted around the room. She'd have to check there if the Walk was a bust. The cold night wind bit at her bare arms as she took the right set stairs either side of the bounty to two at a time to reach the small tunnel but she didn't mind, she liked it even.

"Nova!" She called out again, walking through the left tunnel to the Walk where the new Awoken was greeted by several Guardians looking at her whilst a good twenty or so more were standing around something that was on fire and burning brightly. Some of the Guardians were still in their armour, one hunter was dressed from head to toe in sleek, glossy white armour with a long thin cape that reached their ankles, a simple wolf head design about half way down. A Titan stood next to the Hunter in pitch black armour, black fur around his helmet that had some sort of antlers sticking out, a long, angular piece of black fabric around their waist. He towered over the Hunter making them look shorter than they probably were. One Warlock who was sitting under a red leafed tree at the right end of the Walk was dressed in bright yellow robes and armour with small bits of black accenting and dotted, watching whatever was going on with a casually dressed purplish man next to him who was cheering on whatever was going on.

Everyone not in armour were dressed in everything from pants and long sleeved shirts to shorts and tank tops to skirts and shawls. Rich reds, dark blues, even whites and silvers, she saw so many colours and patterns on their clothes except for hers'. No one seemed to be wearing the Vanguard-issued clothing. She stuck out like a sore thumb. She was glad when most of everyone staring at her quickly lost interest, allowing her to start very awkwardly looking around for the Ghost that'd literally run away from her.

"Such a great Guardian loosing your own Ghost just because she won't loose a bet. Nova where the hell are you?" Cecilia muttered to herself, laughing slightly at the prospect of playing a very abrupt game of hide and seek after so much had happened in her one day of being alive again.

Suddenly a black sphere with red devil horns tapped to the sides popped up in front of her as something large and warm clamped down on her shoulder, making her jolt back as far the thing on her shoulder would allow her to. "Did you say 'Nova'?" 

  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long! Describing parts of the Tower and getting it right takes a while ^^' 
> 
> Reference for what I imagine the apartments the Guardians live in look like (all be it, the rooms are probably a bit smaller and have different layouts depending on the Guardian(Also mad props to the artist who did all of the modelling for it and I know it's what the ship interior could look like but looks too much like an apartment tbh)) - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/JO9ym
> 
> Also published on Wattpad if you prefer that site (it has funny gifs and images)  
> https://www.wattpad.com/story/150318633-the-awoken-hunter


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